"Our bells ring, our chimneis smoake, our fields rejoice, our children dance, ourselues sing and play, _Jovis omnia plena_. But when righteousnesse hath sowne and comes to reape, here is no haruest; [Greek: ouk eurisko], I finde none. And as there was neuer lesse wisdome in Greece then in time of the Seven Wise Men, so neuer lesse pietie among vs, then now, when vpon good cause most is expected. When the sunne is brightest the stars be darkest: so the cleerer our light, the more gloomy our life with the deeds of darkness. The Cimerians, that live in a perpetuall mist, though they deny a sunne, are not condemned of impietie; but Anaxogoras, that saw the sunne and yet denied it, is not condemned of ignorance, but of impietie. Former times were like Leah, bleare-eyed, but fruitful; the present, like Rachel, faire, but barren. We give such acclamation to the Gospell, that we quite forget to observe the law. As vpon some solenne festivall, the bells are rung in all steeples, but then the clocks are tyed vp: there is a great vntun'd confusion and clangor, but no man knowes how the time passeth. So in this vniuersall allowance of libertie by the Gospell (which indeed rejoyceth our hearts, had we the grace of sober vsage), the clocks that tel vs how the time passes, Truth and Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still _Fructum non invenio_, I finde no fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."--Pp. 39, 40., 4to. Lond. 1623. BALLIOLENSIS. * * * * * Minor Notes. _On a "Custom of y^e Englyshe._"--When a more than ordinarily doubtful matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a "fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from the episode he {363} relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a native, but-- "The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a Turke, who, in Italian, told me--Ah! are you an Englishman, and with a _kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his eye_, methought he had the lookes of a designe."--_Voyage in the Levant, performed by Mr. Henry Blunt_, p. 60.: Lond. 1650. --a silent, but expressive, "posture," tending to eradicate any previously formed opinion of the verdantness of Mussulmans! R. C. WARDE. Kidderminster.